


Airheaded

by enmity



Category: Persona Series, Persona | Revelations Persona
Genre: F/F, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 06:19:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14743557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: It hits Yuka one day that the problem is sometimes, she thinks she can’t remember high school before she met Yukino.





	Airheaded

**Author's Note:**

> anyway have my first attempt @ writing yukayukki LMFAO since...i promised... even though i feel like this should be longer rip :(

It hits Yuka one day that the problem is sometimes, she thinks she can’t remember high school before she met Yukino.

Logically she knows this isn’t true, because she remembers being asked out in her first year by an upperclassman and unceremoniously turning him down, remembers undeserved afternoons spent at the principal’s office for some so-called misdemeanor or other, remembers dying her hair in her bathroom sink and trying on her first pair of heels, looking at herself in the mirror day after day and telling herself ‘this is fine’ in the hopes that someday it will be true – but even so it feels as though there’s a divide slicing through her teenage years; a clean separation of memories of which Yukino is the catalyst, the mark in her landscape denoting a middle point between her before and after (which doesn't really make sense, but bear with her).

Yuka remembers one day ending up in the school infirmary, socked toes curling against the metal frame of a bed that’s nowhere near comfy, wondering how long it could take for the scrape on her cheek to heal. It stings; the disinfectant feels uncomfortable on her skin, and she winces when she shifts against the pillow in time to catch the sight of a girl she remembers being in her class walking in, being ushered by the nurse to _go sit down_ because _what’s wrong with you, why do you keep ending up in situations like this?_

Yuka thinks, ‘huh’, and blinks, because – wow, she never noticed how tall she was – and it isn’t until a few minutes later that she realizes she isn’t able to put a name to the girl’s face. She’s forgetful like that.

_And here I thought you’d given up on being a delinquent. I know they probably deserved it, but it still won’t look good to the other teachers…_

“Hey, don’t I know you?” Mayuzumi – Yuka pretends she wasn’t eyeing the nurse’s notebook for the name for a good few seconds – asks, later, raising one eyebrow and resting her chin on one bandaged fist as she sits on the adjacent bed. The wrappings are fresh and a little scary to look at, because she can’t help imagining the wound underneath, and that part of Yuka that proclaims to know better is telling her she should be intimidated and look away – except past experience has proven that in the end she rarely knows anything worthwhile, anyway, so there’s no harm in choosing to ignore it now. Yuka offers an absent smile. “Ayase, right? I remember we’re in the same class. How’d you end up here?”

“Some dumb girl accused me of stealing her boyfriend,” says Yuka. She crosses her arms behind her head and stares at the ceiling. The light hurts to look at. “I’m sure she’ll get over it and realize what a huge mistake she made, liking a guy she can’t even trust. She got a hit in, but ran off before I could retaliate. That’s all. I didn’t even know the guy.”

Her expression tightens, pulled taut by something like hurt – offense at being accused of someone else’s dramatics – but she doesn’t look back at Mayuzumi, just leans further against the pillow. Whatever.

“What about you?" she goes on. "No offense, but seems like you’re a regular visitor here. Unlike you, I’m a perfectly respectable girl who doesn’t get into fights, like, what, thrice a week…”

Mayuzumi shrugs in an apparent lack of offense. “Sometimes idiots only start listening when you use your fists. Not my fault there’s plenty of those to go around.”

“Mm. Makes sense,” Yuka replies, because it does.

Later Yuka would think that the reason she didn’t immediately break into laughter was that she couldn’t believe a girl could say something like that with a straight face and somehow manage to look undeniably cool while doing so. But it might have been that she found herself looking at Mayuzumi and felt the words forming on the tip of her tongue, characteristically lacking in restraint: _wow, I’m kind of jealous._

She didn’t know how to explain it, but she was, and she wasn’t just thinking about how she never thought she could solve the problem of people being annoying by knocking some sense into them: it was something about the way Mayuzumi didn’t blanch at her flippant words, the way she carried herself in class and out of it with her back straight and gaze sharp, and how she’d tell Yuka later, after they’d graduated to being on first name-basis with one another, that the reason she’d asked why she was with the nurse in the first place was that she was concerned for her.

Maybe jealousy would be a bad word for it, but it’d been the first one she thought of, and it wasn’t like Yuka had ever been articulate. She just couldn’t find a word for the way she felt when she realized how obviously sure of herself Yukino had looked to her the first time they met. Like Yukino was a mirror that reflected back to Yuka unsparingly how aimless and lost she was in comparison.

And anyway, none of that matters in the long run. What matters is – that’s how they truly met. And sometimes it’s hard to remember what it’s like before she started calling her Yukino, before she had someone looking out for her, hounding at her to eat better or pack an umbrella or wear a scarf and cover her legs so she doesn’t catch a cold, insisting she stay over to do homework because there’s no way she’s going to finish it on time otherwise. She knows she’s not the easiest person to get along with, but it still sucks a little to realize it’s likely Yukino’s the first true friend she’s made in, well… a while, at least before she got over herself a little and opened up more, and shouldn’t that matter? Shouldn’t that mean something?

Maybe the reason she can’t remember much of what it’s like before they met is that she doesn’t like to admit how lonely she was back then.

Brown tells her that’s how all love stories start, with a fateful meeting, and although Yuka ends up trying to throw something at him so he’d shut up about when _he_ met Yukino for the first time, because _Yukino barely even knows you exist, dumbass, and I’d know because I’m her best friend_ , like every other nonsensical thing that comes out of his mouth when they’re talking and she’s half-distracted with trying to remember why she puts up with him, it ends up sticking with her for much, much longer than it should.

So when she kicks him in the shin the next day for his trouble, grabbing her bag and walking away before he has the chance to walk up to her and demand her to explain what the hell she’s doing, she’s entirely unsurprised when it doesn’t make her feel the slightest bit better. Because she’s thought it over, and the thing is: yeah. Brown might have a point. She might have a crush on Yukki. And she’d be caught dead before she admits that _he_ helped her realize it.

Now the problem is, she thinks as she approaches Yukino with an offer to walk home with her, is what she’s going to do about it.


End file.
